List of airlines of Iran

Iran has several private and public airline companies in operation. The oldest is Iran Air. As of June 2009, Iranian planes fly 45 international flight routes. Most of the fleet of Iranian airlines today consist of old Boeings and used or leased Airbus and Russian manufactured aircraft such as Tupolevs.[1]Sanctions from the United States prevents Iran from purchasing most new western made aircraft to update its rapidly aging fleet. Iran's own poor safety regulations and mismanagement on behalf of the Iran civil aviation authorities has also been a known factor to blame.[2] This has resulted in a series of ongoing disasters and incidents.[3] Because of this, in the last 25 years there have been 17 plane crashes, and 1500 deaths (From 2000 to 2006, 11 Iranian plane crashes claimed about 700 lives).[4][5][6] The fact that Iran's economy has been controlled by the government for so many years is also an issue that has affected the aviation industry.[4] Iran has however initiated manufacturing aircraft on its own such as the IR.AN-140.[7]A number of 108 airliners have been added to the fleet of Iranian passenger planes during the last five years.[8] With a population of 70 million, Iran needs to have 6,300 airplanes while it does not possess more than nine aircraft for every one million individuals.[9] Iran plans to buy 400 passenger planes by 2025.[10] As of 2014, Iranian airliners spend 25% of their earnings on aircraft maintenance on average while the global average is only 6%.[11] Iran plans to liberalize airfare prices by 2015.[12]